How to Remove Windows 8.1 Store Apps with PowerShell (when they won’t go quietly).

Here’s an issue that I’ve only experienced once myself, but that anecdotal evidence says may not be a completely uncommon occurrence for some users.

You install an app from the Windows Store that either doesn’t install correctly (most likely due to an issue from the developer) or you decide that isn’t really your cup of tea.

You open the Start menu and try to Uninstall the app normally, by right-clicking the app tile and then selecting Uninstall from the context menu below.

I’m using the really wonderful app Network Speed Test for this example ( I personally love this app, and have never had issue with uninstalling it, but again this is just for example).

Now in my experience the app that wouldn’t uninstall had no reaction to my clicking the Uninstall button. I didn’t get an error message, the app just didn’t uninstall.

The next step was to open up PowerShell and ‘get under the hood’ so to speak.  Open up Windows PowerShell as an Administrator.

At the PowerShell command prompt type ‘get-appxpackage’ and hit enter.

The list of installed applications will scroll past.  You’ll need to scroll back thru them to find the application you can’t remove.

Alternatively you can type ‘get-appxpackage –Name *some portion of the name*’ to find your app package.

In the above example I typed ‘get-appxpackage –Name *speed* to find the package for Microsoft.NetworkSpeedTest

From this same output we also get the PackageFullName which will use to remove the package.

Now type ‘remove-appxpackage’ with the full package name.  In my example I typed ‘remove-appxpackage Microsoft.NetworkSpeedTest_1.0.0.23_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe –confirm’

The –confirm switch gives you a nice prompt to let you verify what you are doing before you commit.  Hitting ‘Y’ the default proceeds with the Uninstall.

And now the pesky app is uninstalled (though in my test case I’ll be re-installing that app immediately).

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  does not work with the Package Store:Remove-AppxPackage winstore_1.0.0.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy.....C:WindowsWinStore failed. This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis.....

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  What happens when you have to perform a Windows 8.1 reinstall and a number of apps no longer work, you can't update/repair/reinstall through the store, and the tiles on the start screen are missing the "uninstall" command. Tried the PowerShell and it did not find the app. I'm stumped.

• Anonymous
  November 04, 2013
  Perfect! Thanks!

• Anonymous
  November 07, 2013
  This is excellent.  Please post more powershell stuff like this.

• Anonymous
  November 17, 2013
  it is my own pc and it shows me as a local administrator, it will not allow me to use the powershell as administrator

• Anonymous
  November 25, 2013
  how do i remove "store" from windows 8.1

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2014
  In a previous blog post, I reviewed an issue some users were having launching the Windows 8.1 App Store

• Anonymous
  January 28, 2014
  I uninstalled a program and the program had created a place on the app list and the uninstall did not remove it. So, now I can't remove it. I tried this method and it does not show up. The only thing I can get it to do is come up in its folder. But the folder doesn't actually exist and the shortcut can't be deleted or interacted with. What do I do? Any help is greatly appreciated.email kintelary gmail thanks.

• Anonymous
  January 29, 2014
  It doesn't remove the apps but is a good work around:Go to:c:programdatamicrosoftwindowsstart menuprogramsDelete the shortcuts to the Apps you don't want.Although this doesn't remove the apps it does remove them from the start menu for all users.

• Anonymous
  March 14, 2014
  Perfect! Thanks! It did what i can't find in Win8 UI at all. :)

• Anonymous
  May 08, 2014
  You saved my life!

• Anonymous
  May 15, 2014
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 19, 2014
  Thank you!

• Anonymous
  May 29, 2014
  GREAT! pesky fake free apps removed for good thanks you. please post more powershell demos!

• Anonymous
  May 30, 2014
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 24, 2014
  I want to remove the mail app and reinstall it.I am unable to get it by searching [get-appxpackage –Name calender
  get-appxpackage –Name people
  get-appxpackage –Name mail]
  None of these is able to search please suggest the solution.....

• Anonymous
  July 24, 2014
  Worked great.
  Thank you!

• Anonymous
  July 24, 2014
  Worked great.
  Thank you!

• Anonymous
  July 26, 2014
  Not working with windows store in 8.1 !!!!!!!

• Anonymous
  July 26, 2014
  I am going away
  lgfhjpyt

• Anonymous
  July 26, 2014
  cv.braervroey

• Anonymous
  July 28, 2014
  Thanks this is great

• Anonymous
  August 02, 2014
  Gameloft Asphalt 8 crashed and my app store suggested that I uninstall it and reinstall it. The problem is it doesn't uninstall either through windows or by using windows powershell. In powershell when I hit y it does nothing.

• Anonymous
  August 03, 2014
  Thanks a lot.

• Anonymous
  August 27, 2014
  I tried and cannot uninstall Unpacker with Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA
  Unpackert is the tool MS automatically installs for unzipping zipped files. I tried using it but it was so limited... I could not browse to find the file to unzip or where to unzip it. I try to associate zipped files with the other tool I installed by default but there are a couple hundred associated with Unpacker and it would take hours to complete.

• Anonymous
  October 04, 2014
  Thanks a lot dear, Works Perfect!

• Anonymous
  October 30, 2014
  Thanks a lot:)

• Anonymous
  January 04, 2015
  works.. except didn't ask me to confirm uninstall. but Thanks anyway.. :)

• Anonymous
  January 06, 2015
  thanks a lot man very useful.
  after entering 2015 my mail-calendar-people apps stopped working, don't know why and
  there was no uninstall option in the right click.
  but with this method I removed the 'microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps' app
  and it was successful thanks to you.
  Good Luck

• Anonymous
  January 13, 2015
  Many thanks for good effort but it does not work for windows store in 8.1.Please email me at david@pettigrewsonline.net if you can think of any other approach.

• Anonymous
  February 09, 2015
  Thanks for the tips! It worked flawlessly.

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2015
  Thank you very much!!

• Anonymous
  April 09, 2015
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  April 14, 2015
  Excellent - just the info I was looking for - thank you

• Anonymous
  April 17, 2015
  I had the "80070002 AppxDeploymentFailureBlue" stuff. I tried everything but failed.
  However, I was able to fix the problem by purging the broken package using this method. Thank you very much!

• Anonymous
  May 06, 2015
  Hi there...I bought a brand new HP envy laptop in March loaded with Windows 8.1. The "Store" app doesn't work at all...the screen pops up and then goes down to the task bar. This also happens to 95% of the other apps that came with this OS. The Store does not have the option to uninstall, nor does it have the option to update, or sync licenses, it doesn't appear in the task manager...it exists only as a green tile that does nothing. I have been on the MS forums (as well as other forums too), and tried many things...powershell/wreset/app diagnostics/renaming cache folders/you name it, I have done it...nothing works. I phoned up the MS support, and was told if I paid for some sort of subscription, that an engineer can fix it. Um...no ...this is a new machine and should work!. The HP support told me to do a reset.....My IT guy wont touch it and told me to downgrade to 7......Help Help....

• Anonymous
  May 17, 2015
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 13, 2015
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 14, 2015
  Thank you thank you thank you works in win 10 as well
  

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2015
  Awesome, thanks for that tip! Works perfectly on Windows 10.